If given the choice between black and gold helmets for Southern Miss, football fans overwhelmingly prefer black according to a Twitter survey.

The survey was informal at best, but 43 votes were cast – 40 for black, two for gold and one indecisive fan decided to go for both.

So there you have it, Southern Miss fans hate the gold helmet.

USM has switched between the traditional black helmet and alternate gold ones over the last two years. Many fans likely associate the last two seasons of 1-23 football with the gold version.

In USM's run of 18 consecutive winning seasons from 1994-2011, it mostly stuck with simple black helmets with “Southern Miss” on the side.

In 2011, USM started to tinker with different helmet logos.

In 2012, the gold helmets appeared as part of full uniforms that were replicas of Southern Miss outfits from the 1970's.

Last year, USM often donned a gold helmet that was the inverted version of the traditional helmet – a black “Southern Miss” logo on a gold helmet.

After wearing gold helmets to start fall camp, USM switched to the black helmets in practice on Monday.

Athletic director Bill McGillis said last year that he believed that most fans identify Southern Miss with a certain toughness that goes with the image of the black helmets. He said he wanted the program to stick with the black version.

As for which lids USM will be wearing on Aug. 30 when it travels to Mississippi State for the season opener, we'll just have to wait and see.